Last night I took the plunge and upgraded to Quicken 2008. I had been using the 2006 version. It's going to take me some time to get used to the newer version, but so far I really like it. I like to be able to access different pages through the tabs. Reports are easier to access.It has a sleeker look than the old version.

Okay, so this morning I hear for sure that the max that a household is going to get from the stimulus pacakge is $1200. So I had to revise my Quicken Debt Reduction Planner.

With only $1200 put down on the mortgage it extends the payoff date to January 2009. At the end of the year there will only be a balance of $550 left on it though. I'm betting that I can find an extra $550 somewhere this year so that it can be paid off. That will be my challenge to myself.

DH also wants to buy a coal stove for the main part of the house to replace the wood pellet stove. We have found that the coal stove in the kitchen puts off much more heat and is more reliable than the pellet stove. So the money I save each week out of his paycheck will probably end up going for that.

We will probably also need to put a new roof on the main section of the house this year. The garage roof also needs replaced. Ack! So many expensive projects. It's going to make it a real challenge to pay off that mortgage, but I keep telling myself that it will be well worth it.

According to Voice of America DH and I could be getting $2700 we weren't counting on this year. That's banking on reports that it would be $300 per child, with no limit to the number of children.

I reran my Quicken debt reduction planner, and if that is correct, mortgage #1 can be paid off this November and the car payment could be retired November of 2009.

According to Quicken's Debt Reduction planner I will have 3 debts paid off in 3 years if I can continue to funnel as much money to them as I am now.

The furniture can be paid off in December 2007.

The smaller mortgage can be paid off in December 2008.

And the car loan can be paid off in December 2009.

That would be awesome! The only debt that would remain is the larger mortgage and that could be paid off in February 2013. Not bad at all!

I finally feel like I have my Quicken up and running again since my computer reformat on Mother's Day. I think I have most of my recurring bills entered and reminders scheduled.

The only lingering problem from the computer reformat is that I cannot get into my phone bill online. I have to have my account number and PIN that comes on my statement. Well, I no longer get the statement in the mail since I pay it online so I don't know what the PIN is. They can't give it to me over the phone so I'm waiting for a printed statement to arrive in the mail. Once that comes I'll have access again.

I was under the impression that once you logged in with that information and created your own user name and password that you no longer needed that information. But since the site doesn't recognize my computer anymore I have to have that info in order to gain access once again. What a pain!

I feel like I'm operating in the dark here without my Quicken program being fully functional. I had it all set up with reminders to pay all of my bills throughout the year. Now with having lost all of that, I'm afraid I'm going to miss something.

I am slowly adding the information back in as I go, but it's been slow and tedious. Just setting up the reminders for my transfers to ING each week was dicey since I'd also lost my budgeting spreadsheets. More reason to order a flash drive and start backing up onto that!

I had to begin the process today of starting over with Quicken. I had to totally reformat my computer this weekend because it would not do anything, so all my Quicken records are gone (hadn't backed them up for a while) and also my spreadsheets.

I'm kind of glad to start again with Quicken because I had way too much in there anyway. It will just be a tedious process to get all of my bills reentered and the bill-paying schedule going. Oh well, I'll enjoy it!

I got home to find DH's profit sharing check on the computer desk ready for me to work my magic. LOL!

So CC#1 is paid off! I put aside $200 for new glasses for the 3 that I know are going to need them this month. And some of it is going to my librarian friend.

After doing this I reran my Quicken Debt Reduction Planner. These are the results:

Debt-Free Date= 8/2013 (includes mortgages)
Interest Paid= $21,589.18
Interest Saved= $42,689.17

This goal is without any extra payments on the debts. You know I'm going to pay any extra that I can manage!

I'm really motivated now to get down to business!

Oh, and woo-hoo! Change box got over $10 today!

I redid my Quicken debt planner the other day and took out the mortgages so that I could see how long it would take us to be debt-free minus the mortgage. I thought if I broke it all down into a smaller goal that would help keep me on track since it would be a shorter time frame.

The results were:

- all bills but mortgages paid off in Feb. 2010
- $4,125.98 saved in interest
- CC#1 paid off in Feb. 2007
- CC#2 paid off in Sept. 2008
- furniture paid off in March 2009
- car paid for in Feb. 2010 (2 years and 1 month ahead of payment schedule)

Hopefully, it won't take as long since I didn't add in the extra money that I know will be coming in that I plan on using to make extra payments. And in January I'll be adding more to the payments out of my raise also.